By Matt Hardy
The Champions Cup is back but I just don’t really care. When I was a toddler in the stands of England’s Premiership grounds, I loved the top flight European Cup – seeing my club play in it meant so much more than watching domestic rugby. That aura has vanished.
I don’t know whether it is the inclusion of South African sides or the revamped group stages, but it’s lost its sex appeal.
Compare it with football: a Premier League or LaLiga title means the world but winning the Champions League is everything. It’s that step above, the reward for conquering a continent.
But back to the oval ball game, there’s just so much wrong with it – mainly the group stages.
Champions Cup without its spark
Gone are the days of four-team pools, where every game mattered, and here is the era of two 12-team conferences where one match point has seen teams progress in the past.
It’s lost its jeopardy, it’s lost its spark – and that’s a shame.
Gone, too it seems, are the days where teams were punished for fielding frankly comical sides in what’s supposed to be the top drawer Champions Cup.
Gloucester sent a pitiful side to Leinster in this season’s second round – and were beaten 57-0 – while a number of sides, notably Northampton Saints, have seemingly forgotten to get off the bus for their fixtures.
When I was younger, my father and I would travel Europe supporting our club. Those weekends have become talking points at the pub since.
And despite our desire to go to South Africa to experience some of its world famous rugby hospitality, it’s simply too expensive to justify the thousands it would cost to get there and back to watch our side put out a XV that will be on the end of a drubbing.
Europe used to be the holy grail of rugby. Munster, Leinster and Toulouse are some of those whose entire professional history is built on Heineken Cup success.
A tweak to the group stages and a commitment from clubs to give a toss would dramatically shift the competition’s tectonic plates back into alignment.
Jetting off
It’s no slight on the South African sides; they’ve added to the competition on the pitch. But I think it was a move which was cemented too early. The four sides should have been able to establish themselves in the United Rugby Championship for five years – simply to grow their brand and appeal in Europe – before they entered the Champions Cup.
And why is a South African rugby team – the Cheetahs – who are not in the URC allowed in the Challenge Cup ahead of, say, a triumphant team from one of Europe’s other domestic leagues – such as the Super Cup?
Short sightedness and a lack of planning has created a product that turns me off from European rugby – and it needn’t have been this way.
I just wish fans had been thought of beforehand. I cannot jet off to Pretoria for two days like I can to Dublin, La Rochelle or Parma.
I’ll be watching Leinster’s trip to a Premiership ground this weekend. Why? It has nothing to do with the competition they play in but because it’s Leinster. The attraction to the teams is there, it’s the competition that lets them down
The post The Champions Cup used to be sexy, now it’s a turn-off appeared first on CityAM.
